1. Field of the Invention
In general, the invention relates to media management applications, and, more particularly, to using a media management application to create and print illustrated labels for media asset collections.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditionally, music has been purchased at music stores or music departments of larger stores. A consumer will visit the music store or department and manually browse for albums or compact discs (CDs) of interest. After the consumer selects an album or CD of interest, the consumer proceeds to a checkout register to pay for the album or CD being purchased.
In recent years music delivery or distribution over the Internet has become popular. Due to the advances in efficient file formats, such as MP3 and MPEG4, the size of media files has become small enough to make their download via the Internet practical. Also, technological advances have led to higher-speed Internet connections and lower cost of memory. The combination of these advances make downloading media files, such as for music and videos, manageable and not too time consuming.
One popular approach to online music distribution is Apple Computer's iTunes® online music store. Consumers may use the iTunes® online music store to purchase music either as individual music tracks or in albums of songs. Other music stores such as Rhapsody™ and Napster™ have also been employed to purchase music online.
In many instances, consumers who have purchased music using an online media store are given permission under a purchase or license agreement to create (burn) CDs, DVDs, or other removable media that contain the music they have purchased from the online music store for personal use. Generally, burning is performed using a removable media drive (e.g., CD-RW) in conjunction with an application running on a client computer. For example, if a consumer has a personal computer with a CD burner, the iTunes® client application allows the consumer to burn a CD. For example, the consumer may purchase a media asset collection or compilation online. Generally speaking, a media asset collection/compilation is typically a grouping of one or more media assets, selected by a user (e.g., a custom playlist) or a media publisher (e.g., album, boxset, video collection, etc.).
If the consumer decides to burn a collection/compilation to a removable medium such as a CD, DVD, or MiniDisk™, that user might also desire an attractive illustrated label to go along with it. Some media management applications, such as MusicMatch Jukebox™ and Apple Computer's iTunes®, allow the user to create labels for the media they have burned (or intend to burn), which can then be printed using a printer. For example, a label can be an insert for a CD jewel case that includes one or more media asset illustrations associated with the songs that have been burned to the CD as well as a list of songs that have been burned to the CD.
Unfortunately, a user generally has few options in the selection of the colors that will be used to create jewel case in for a media asset collection/compilation. Typically, the user is not given a choice as to the colors used in the creation of the illustrated label. However, giving the user too much control over color selection may not be desirable to many users who are not interested in “eyeballing” or estimating which colors will be aesthetically pleasing. Thus, there is a need for techniques to automate color selection in the creation of CD jewel cases and other color labels that can be created to accompany burned media.